1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to hoisting and conveying machinery, and in particular to a to a bulk material gathering apparatus with a bucket wheel and to methods for gathering bulk materials using the bulk material gathering apparatus with a bucket wheel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional bulk material gathering and transferring machines are described, for example, in “Hoisting and Conveying Machinery Product Sample” (Lu Yansun, 2005, 2nd Ed, China Heavy Machinery Industry Association and Beijing Hoisting Machinery Institute, pp. 903-931). These machines suffer from many problems and shortcomings including: 1) Difficult alignment of head assemblies and conveyor belts; 2) Discrepancies between the gathering speed and the transport speed; 3) Low production efficiency; 4) Need to use high deadweights due to torsional forces created during operation which further reduces efficiency; 5) High wheel pressure (up to 390 tons), which makes movement difficult, lowers construction speed, and increases cost.
Although certain improvements have been made recently in this area of technology to overcome the existing problems and shortcoming (e.g., increase in bucket size in Chinese made MDQ bulk material gathering model), much opportunity for improvement remains.